Slow-Cooker Monday: Indian-Spiced Tomato Sauce

This dish turned out tasting kind of terrible, but that's entirely my fault. I've been buying Pomi tomatoes lately, but the box I used to make this was marinara, not just tomatoes, and I didn't realize it until it was too late. It smelled kind of awful, so I didn't have the heart to continue with the recipe I was going to make, tofu and green beans simmered in the sauce. Instead I put the finished sauce in the fridge so I could think and used it the next day to poach an egg. It wasn't tasty, but I could see the potential. Use the right kind of tomatoes and serve with rice or naan and this could be pretty good. It also opens up the idea of doing a long-simmering pasta sauce in the slow cooker.

First I cooked 1/2 a minced onion in some oil until softened. I added 1 minced garlic clove and 1/2 teaspoon minced ginger, then 1 cinnamon stick, 4 cardamom pods, 6 whole cloves, a dash of crushed red pepper flakes, 1 teaspoon caraway seeds and 1 teaspoon salt. Cooked a bit to warm the spices, then poured in 28 ounces of the wrong thing. You should use crushed tomatoes or tomato puree with no seasoning.

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Poured that into the slow cooker and cooked on high 4 hours. You could also cook on low 6 to 8 hours. When the sauce was finished I was going to stir in diced tofu and green beans to heat through, but instead I used some of the sauce in a small skillet to poach an egg.

I brought the tomato sauce to a simmer, then I broke an egg in the middle. Seasoned the egg with salt and pepper, then covered to cook. I cooked it a long time, 15 minutes, because I've been eating my eggs with a hard yolk. Cook the egg to your preference.

Try this Indian-spiced recipe, or go Italian with ragu (don't, however, try to do both at once):